


Future Imperfect

by Tarlan



Category: Terminator (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-09-07
Updated: 2006-09-07
Packaged: 2017-10-18 16:58:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/191125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tarlan/pseuds/Tarlan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The future is not set... and John Connor decides to use that to his own advantage.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Future Imperfect

**Author's Note:**

> Once again I feel that I must come to the rescue of one of MB's characters... although this was a slightly taller order than usual.

Sarah Connor placed the recorder on the passenger seat and sighed, her attention snapping back up at the sound of a shutter closing. She bartered for the photo and placed it with the tape that she would keep as part of a personal time capsule for the son growing in her womb. She wished she had a photo of Kyle to strengthen her through the years that stretched ahead, but instead, all she had was her memories. She reflected on her words, how she and Kyle had so few hours together and yet they had managed to love enough for a lifetime. She wanted John to know this, hoped it might strengthen his own resolve when the time came.

She had seen the terminator destroyed, crushed beyond its own self-repairing skills, then she had crawled back to Kyle's body, some small hope flickering inside that he might still be alive even though she knew, in her heart, that he was dead. She closed his unseeing eyes and hugged him to her tightly, part of her own soul dying with him.

There were so many things she had wanted to ask him: about himself, about her son, but there had not been enough time. Instead they were given only that single hour of passion.

Even now she could still see him, could still feel the warmth of his lips upon her own as they kissed for the first time. He was her first and would probably be her only lover, and she could still feel the roughness of his skin beneath her fingers as she traced the outlines of his scars, such a contrast to the silkiness of the unblemished flesh. Her fingers had interlaced with his own as they moved together, his hardened shaft filling her virgin body bringing both ecstasy and pain in equal measure. Gradually the pain had diminished as her body succumbed to the pleasure of him moving inside her. She had raised and lowered herself upon him, sighing as that silken steel shaft glided against her sensitive flesh, slowly bringing her to the very edge. She had cried out when her climax overtook her, her vaginal muscles clamping hard around him and, moments later, she had felt the heat of his own release filling her. She had collapsed upon his firm chest, feeling the heat radiate from his sweat-soaked flesh as she kissed and caressed every inch of skin within reach.

It still awed her to realize that they created a new life with that one single act of love. Her thoughts came back to the present as John kicked her. Her hand moved to rub across her swollen belly as she felt another strong kick from their unborn son. She smiled, he was already a fighter, just as his father had said he would be.

Sarah started the jeep and headed deeper into Mexico, her mind already turning to the storm that was coming. Kyle had died to give her a child who would become a hero, leading humanity from the brink of extinction, and she would not let his death be in vain.

****

The second terminator, sent to kill John Connor, was infinitely more sophisticated: a T-1000 morph that had chased them relentlessly and they had only just survived. After seeing the T-1000 melted beyond its ability to reform, they set about destroying the reprogrammed terminator that had been sent back to protect her son. Sarah watched as it was lowered into the smelting vat, the last signs of life draining from its red eye as it disappeared into the superheated mix.

She collapsed onto the ground, hugging her son close to her, her mind replaying the dream she had of Kyle. Somehow, even in death, he had reached out to her in her darkest hour and given her both strength and a reason to go on.

Sarah brushed the hair back from her son's face and looked into his eyes, smiling in remembrance.

 _He has your eyes._

Kyle had said this to her when she had asked about her son, and he had been right, but she could see the things he had missed. She could see aspects of Kyle Reese; the beautiful mouth with its bowed upper lip, the strong jaw line and high cheek bones so different from her own square shaped face.

 _The future is not set._

John had passed her that message, sending it back to her through the years - through his own father - and she could only hope that, this time, it was all over. She made sure every scrap of the terminator had gone into the superheated liquid, not wanting to leave anything to chance, desperately wanting to believe that the world would be spared the genocidal madness of the SkyNet computer now that both terminators and the original scientist, Dyson, were no more.

****

Her son wondered at her unhealthy vigilance, the way she scanned the net each day, a single name in the search parameters: Kyle Reese. The name came up several times, Kyle having become quite popular over the last few years, and Sarah checked through the details carefully, always fully aware that there was no guarantee that the name Reese was the surname he was born with.

Then one day she found an entry: A son, Kyle, born to Michael and Jennifer Reese. The man in the photo was handsome, with tousled blond hair and that so familiar mouth... and his wife had smoky green eyes, just like Kyle's. He was born. The man she had fallen in love with well over a decade ago had finally come into existence. She sighed knowing that, this time, he might be given a chance to live a full and happy life.

Time passed by slowly as Sarah settled in Alabama so she could be closer to the boy, wanting to be a part of his life even though he might never know her in any other way. She managed to purchase a house almost opposite that of the Reese family and spent many hours just sitting at the front window watching the young family. The neighbors left her alone for the most part which suited her just fine, allowing her all the time she needed to watch her beautiful lover of a single night, the father of her son, take his first steps; even daring to hold him once when he fell off his bike and cut his knee.

She watched as he grew into the man she remembered, sighed with as much sadness as his own mother when he went off to college. She had known this time would come, a time when she would no longer be able to see him every day, but she had no regrets. The Kyle Reese she had known for those few short hours had grown up in the aftermath of a nuclear war, and had spent his childhood dodging killer machines. At least this Kyle had been granted a happy childhood in this time line.

"Mom? Don't you think it's time to let go?"

"Soon."

She saw the compassion in her son's eyes. He had grown into a handsome man with the same height and build as his father, but his eyes were blue and his hair dark, and yet there was so much in his face that reminded her of Kyle. John was the only person who knew the truth, the only person she could confide in - and she was proud of him. He had a maturity far beyond his years, his brush with the T-1000 making him realise how much was at stake. As he grew she came to understand why he would be the one to make a difference. He worked hard, seeking out those who could answer his questions, forming contacts across the world. She had plenty of run-ins with the authorities over his education, mainly because of the number of times he played truant, but he always saw them off, honing his people skills with the same determination that ruled his study in other areas. But this dedication left him few opportunities for the simple pleasures of life. John had no close friends to play baseball with, or even just to hang out with. He gave himself no respite, spending every moment of every day buried in books, becoming one of the most brilliant hackers in the world, learning every facet of computing, both hardware and software.

John sighed. When the date for the start of the nuclear war had come and gone without so much as a murmur of discontent anywhere in the world, he knew they had succeeded in altering the future but it had not stopped his mother from continuing in her schooling: finding teachers to show him how to build and use weapons, how to hack into computers, how to plan, organize and survive. She did not want to take any chances and neither did he.

As the years rolled by with no sign of the war he had seen her resolve falter as she came to believe that SkyNet and that terrible future would never exist. John smiled and allowed her to believe it, watching as some of the haunted look disappeared from her eyes with this new hope. Instead he had accepted the mantle of responsibility willingly, taking it from her shoulders, his own continued existence convincing him that they may not have changed the future entirely, merely the time frame for the events that would lead to his own conception.

He had to admit that he understood her reasons for wanting to be near Kyle Reese. When they first moved into this neighborhood he had spent plenty of time watching the young boy too, but his fascination had always been tinged by regret. The more he saw of Kyle Reese, the harder it was to imagine a day when he might have to send him to his death. The more he thought of it, the harder he studied, hoping that somewhere amongst all the data he had downloaded from the reprogrammed terminator, he might find a way to save his own father.

****

It was twenty-four hours of chaos, of threats passing back and forth between nations, of people packing everything they owned and taking their families out of the cities. The first bomb dropped on Washington DC, followed closely by the leveling of New York, Chicago, San Francisco and another dozen major cities and military targets. Across the globe it was the same as bombs landed across Europe and the Middle East, in China and in Russia.

The nuclear winter which followed was harsh on all of the survivors, and it was only months later that John discovered that SkyNet had been behind the war, its Artificial Intelligence having grown to the point where it saw humans as a pestilence upon the face of the Earth. He thought he had been so vigilant and wondered how he could have missed the birth of the greatest enemy mankind would ever face. What had never been apparent was the fact that Dyson had not worked alone, that his assistant, another genius in the field of Artificial Intelligence had carried on the man's work albeit at a slower pace.

Those humans that had survived the bombing were rounded up, just as Kyle had said to John's mother all those years ago. Most were exterminated, the rest used as slave labor to remove the bodies for disposal, and John was strangely grateful that his mother had died before being forced to witness her nightmare made reality.

Four years passed by and he worked hard, planning and surviving just as he had been taught, slowly building an underground resistance movement in preparation for the day when he would free humanity, always afraid that he would not live up to his parents' expectation.

One day he looked up as another batch of captives was transferred into the camp and saw a tousled blond head among them. He felt his heart beating faster when he recognized the young man and he knew he had to save him, split him from the rest before they were led into the extermination chamber. John moved quickly and touched the arm of the man who was assigned to saying which of these people would live.

Geoffrey Martins gave John Connor a quick glance, his eyes narrowing when Connor nodded towards a young man with dirty blond hair and green eyes. Normally he would have selected this one without a second thought as the man was young, well-built and surprisingly healthy looking considering the years he must have spent scavenging and hiding - but the young man's arm was in a makeshift sling.

Martins gave John Connor another swift glance, his expression one of frantic disbelief, wondering how he could possibly select this obviously damaged man without the mechanical units assuming he, himself, had become faulty because of his illogical selection. He saw the determination on John Connor's face and realized there had to be a good reason for the resistance leader asking him to take such a risk. Martins took a deep breath and nodded.

He moved forward and grabbed the young man by the good arm, his eyes flitted from side to side to check the whereabout of the robotic guards. A flurry of activity took their attention from him for a moment and he used that opportunity to rip off the bandage and push the boy to one side, his whisper drifting across.

"Pretend the arm is okay or we're both dead."

Martins saw the quick nod and watched as the younger man gritted his teeth before letting his arm drop to his side as if there was nothing wrong with it. Not wanting to take any more chances, Martins pushed the man into a corner then quickly selected several other young men and women to join him. He led the small group of twenty-five towards the extermination plant where they would have to start their corpse-clearing duties immediately if they were to survive.

****

John sighed in relief as Kyle Reese was led away with the rest to be put to work. He had already passed the word that this boy was to be helped at all cost and hoped this would be enough to protect him until his arm healed. It struck John that Kyle was still a little younger than he would have been when he went back in time, judging by the description his mother had given when they had talked of his father so long ago. However, everything had come to pass, just as in the original time line, but at an accelerated pace. Before, the machine war had raged for decades, slowly bringing humanity to the brink of extinction. This time it had taken less than five years.

He returned to his own appointed task and carried on planning in his head, waiting for the right opportunity to present itself but knowing that, with the arrival of Kyle Reese, all the pieces were now in place.

****

Kyle Reese gritted his teeth as the machine laser-burned an identification mark onto the soft inner flesh of his arm. He had no idea of where he was but all the survivors knew about the camps and what went on inside them. He had been a fool for leaving the relative safety of the underground parking lot that had been his home these past few weeks but there had been little choice at the time. An HK unit had discovered the entrance and would have sent back the details to its main controller. Within an hour there would have been machines poring over the area searching for humans. He had decided to take a gamble and make a run for it, but he had been caught. In some ways he was fortunate. If an HK had spotted him first then he would have been exterminated on the spot, but he had been caught by a collection machine and delivered to the plant for processing.

Kyle moved his arm, keeping his face expressionless as the pain ripped through him. He had fallen heavily during his frantic attempt to escape, twisting it under him, but at least it was not broken. The muscular damage would heal in time, but only if he was given that time.

Kyle was shoved forward then led through the dank factory to a large room piled high with bodies. He stopped, face frozen in shock at the sight of the dead men, women and children. A man sidled up behind him and Kyle jerked his head around at the touch on his arm. It was the man who had selected him from amongst the others. The man whispered to him.

"Look as though you are working hard, others will try to help you maintain your quota."

He was pushed forward and was quickly set to work removing any pieces of metal from the corpses before they were loaded onto a belt and sent to the superheated ovens for cremation. Kyle noticed the number of times someone would brush passed him, surreptitiously dropping pieces of metal onto his pile so it looked as if he had been working hard. He wished he could understand why they were doing it, not that he was ungrateful. The opportunity came eight hours later when they were led into a mass dormitory. Kyle felt his good arm grabbed as he walked through the door and, after a moments hesitation, he followed the man to one corner.

Martins handed Kyle over to a man who had been a doctor before the war, hissing as his arm was probed then bandaged firmly.

"Don't over-strain the muscle and it will heal."

He nodded his thanks then turned to Martins.

"Why? Why are you helping me?"

"Because John Connor said so."

The name was familiar but he could not remember where he had heard it before. He was hushed before he had the chance to ask any more questions and spent his first night in the camp in pitch darkness, surrounded by a silent mass of warm bodies.

****

Two months passed, the remnants of the human race being forced into the extermination chambers in an ever decreasing number as fewer and fewer survivors were located and rounded up by the machines. John had watched and waited, marking the exact nature of every mechanical device in the camp, and watching Kyle Reese grow stronger as the young man's arm slowly healed. So many times he had wanted to approach Kyle but he had held back, a little afraid to get too close for fear he might not be able to send him to his death when the time came, but he knew the time was fast approaching when he would have to reach out to the other man.

The opportunity for escape came when the power grid failed. John was fully prepared and had ensured that everyone else was also ready. At his command they stormed the fence, scrambling over the top, or ripping through the mesh with homemade wire-cutters. John watched as the ragged band fled, their escape covered by his own fully trained soldiers with weapons they had built from scratch from the scant amount of material they had scavenged from the dead.

He watched with pride as his father - as Kyle Reese - proved himself a more than capable soldier, bringing down several Hunter-Killers and guard stations as he protected the backs of the fleeing slaves. When it appeared that Kyle was leaving it far too late to make his own escape, John ran back and grabbed the younger man's arm, ordering him to leave and ensuring his order was obeyed by dragging Kyle through the wire, then they were running for their lives.

* * *

The basements of leveled buildings became their home as the fight went on, the passing years full of hardship for all. Gradually the ragged remnants became an army with men and women fighting side by side for a common goal: the destruction of SkyNet. Those who could not fight spent their time making weapons and clothing, and preparing what little food became available for those that did fight.

The war raged on as John organized counter measures against HKs - the Hunter-Killers - and the cyborgs, artificial life forms disguised as humans. They called these cyborgs Terminators as their programming was simple: seek out all human life and terminate it. John used his knowledge to hack into the programming of any of these machines that they managed to disable, sending them back to destroy their own kind. The death toll on the human side was extensive and every life lost caused John terrible grief, but he was undeterred, his unique knowledge of the future giving him the strength to carry on even through their darkest hours.

Through all these years he kept Kyle Reese close and worried about him whenever he was sent out on patrol, but John knew he could not mollycoddle the younger man despite an urge to the contrary. It was already obvious to many that he favored Kyle but no-one complained as Kyle had proved his skill and ability on plenty of occasions. Although John never had the opportunity to talk with Kyle alone for very long, he never excluded the younger man from any of the strategy meetings, and he enjoyed watching him from afar.

On the one occasion when he did sit down with Kyle, John gave him the photograph of Sarah Connor, the one his mother had spoken of when she told him everything she could remember from those few hours she and Kyle had spent together. It hurt John to lose this last physical reminder of the mother he loved, but he knew the fates had long ago ordained that it would belong to Kyle.

****

Kyle sat with his back against the corridor wall, staring at the photograph John Connor had given him so long ago. He did not know why John would part with such a treasured possession but he knew he had to have his reasons. John Connor did so many strange things and often the reason did not become apparent for a long time, but his uncanny ability to second guess SkyNet, and his compassion and leadership skills, had earned him the love and dedication of all. No one questioned his final decisions.

The woman in the photo was beautiful, but she looked so sad. He spent many nights staring at the photo wondering what she was thinking about at that moment, wishing he could wipe the haunted expression from her face with his caress.

His thoughts returned to his own past, remembering his childhood in Alabama. She reminded him so much of the lovely lady who had picked him up when he fell from his bike, tending to his grazed knee and wiping away his tears with a gentle hand. The woman had lived nearby but everyone avoided her because she seemed so strange and sad. She had many visitors, mainly men, and there were rumors that she was not a respectable lady but he had only ever experienced kindness from her.

He had not been in Alabama when the war started, instead he had been at university in Wisconsin. He sighed as he remembered the happy, carefree days on campus. There had been plenty of girls, many who were willing to put out, but he had never found any of them special. When the bombs dropped, he and dozens of other students had banded together, forming their own little tribe, scavenging for food and shelter, working together to fight off other human groups before it became apparent that they had an even greater enemy. He had seen their numbers dwindle as friends died from disease, were killed or captured until there were only a few of his group left. An opportunity to experience love, in any form, never presented itself, all his energy taken up in the day-to-day battle for survival.

He smiled wryly to himself. He was twenty-five years old and had never been laid, and here he was falling in love with a photo of John Connor's mother; a woman who had died before the war.

The barking of the dogs echoed along the corridor and a shout went up, the staccato of gunfire filling the air. He leaped to his feet and charged back towards the entrance, firing at the cyborg that had infiltrated their underground haven. His laser shots ripped away the layers of flesh, reflecting off its metal skeleton to strike the walls. Eventually one hit a sensitive control point and it collapsed and was quickly set upon by the survivors. Within minutes it had been stripped down, its metal innards scavenged for the production of more weapons, then they were all running, dragging the wounded away with them.

Kyle ensured that all the survivors reached the safety of another underground bunker and then he flopped back down, exhausted and miserable. The photo had gone forever and he had felt part of his soul burn away with it.

****

John knew the time was fast approaching when he would have to send Kyle back in time to save his mother from the terminator, but this time he had no intention of sending Kyle to his death. The one advantage of this change in the time line was that he had been granted far more time to research a way to bring Kyle back. To this end he had spent years poring over the information he had stored in the second terminator, the one he had sent back in time to save himself. He had studied every detail of the time travel process, searching for a reversal process that would return Kyle to this future after his 'death', and he had covered every detail of all the horrific experiments SkyNet had performed on humans in its attempt to understand the complexity of the human brain. John was fully aware of how many people had died in those experiments, but if he could turn the results around then perhaps they may not have died in vain.

Unfortunately it was all theoretical and he would be granted only one chance with both the time and the reanimation procedures.

* * *

They had won. The defense grid had fallen leaving SkyNet open to direct attack. One by one the human resistance forces destroyed the communication links, and John used the opportunity to hack into the grid and send the auto destruct sequences to the orbiting satellites. SkyNet was cut off from its huge army and around them the HK's were crashing to the ground as SkyNet concentrated its remaining energy on the robotic sentries that guarded its main complex.

The ragged remnants of humanity stormed the complex, the heavy barrage of laser fire from both forces turning night into day. Every man and woman was pressed into this final assault and John gritted his teeth when he saw so many fall under fire, but his instructions were clear. Once the fighting was over, every injured or slain human was to be brought into the main complex, although John refused to say why. He just hoped he could get the repair and reanimation process to work.

Kyle Reese fought valiantly by his side, covering him at every stage as they moved deeper into the complex, searching for the laboratories. John grimaced as he remembered the awe and pride on the younger man's face when he told Kyle that he wanted him at his side. He knew Kyle would die for him, knew Kyle *had* died for him, and he smiled to himself at the irony that, given the choice, he would willingly die for Kyle instead.

They broke into the laboratory just in time to see the terminator disappearing within the flashes of lightning from a machine-made electrical storm.

"It's gone back in time to kill my mother, to kill me before I am even conceived."

Geoff Martin's eyes widened in shock.

"But without you... Someone has to follow it. Someone has to stop it."

"I'll go."

John turned and looked deeply into the determined green eyes, feeling a burning behind his own as the moment he had dreaded all his life finally arrived, and he felt a moment of indecision.

Those eyes heated, boring into him,.

"Let me go. I was born for this. Somehow I know it."

The words cut through John and he swallowed hard, his voice soft and husky with emotion as he resigned himself to the fates.

"Yes... I know."

Kyle stripped quickly, removing the bulky combat gear, revealing pale flesh scarred with laser burns and slave identification markings. When Kyle turned to face him, standing naked but dignified, John moved forward and pulled him into his embrace, the tears finally spilling from his eyes.

"Good luck."

Kyle released himself from the awkward embrace and gave John a smile of reassurance.

"Don't worry. The fact that you're still standing here is proof enough I'll succeed."

Kyle's body disappeared within the circle of lightning flashes and John knew he had to get to work quickly or lose him forever, but first he needed to obtain and reprogram a second terminator.

A soldier screamed, his body pierced through by a spike of liquid silver. The strange liquid moved relentlessly towards the time machine, killing indiscriminately before lunging the final few feet across the laboratory and disappearing within another spectacular show of artificial lightning. Screams of 'what the hell was that?' filled the room but John knew it was the T-1000. He knew, as did SkyNet, that when nothing changed the moment the first terminator disappeared then its mission to kill Sarah Connor had failed. This was SkyNet's final response, releasing the untested prototype in the hope of killing John Connor while he was too young and inexperienced to protect himself.

Moments later the opportunity that he knew would present itself came to pass. SkyNet had ordered in another three terminators to try and retake the laboratory. Two were destroyed quickly, though not without casualties on the human side, but the third malfunctioned.

John set to work immediately, reprogramming the cyborg to protect the younger version of himself. He downloaded every detail of the time and reanimation processes into its memory chip with a command to pass this information onto his younger self at all costs. John frowned at the irony of doing such a thing, remembering someone once asking what came first, the chicken or the egg. It was the same paradox. The information he placed into the terminator unit would teach him how to place the information into the terminator unit. He pushed the confusing thought aside, knowing he could easily get a headache trying to make sense of it. All John knew for certain was that it must have worked for he still retained that information seconds after sending the reprogrammed unit through the time machine.

John glanced around the laboratory, the information he had carried most of his life directing him to the right place. The lights flickered, moving onto auxiliary power. SkyNet was dying and soon all power would be lost and with it the chance to recover his father.

John ripped aside the panel, dropping onto his back so he could crawl underneath the control unit. He yelled for instruments and they were handed to him without a murmur by his ever faithful right hand man, Geoffrey Martins. It took ten minutes but John was certain he had got it configured right. He crawled back out and dashed across the laboratory to another experimentation area.

"Bring Davison."

"He's dead."

"I know. Just bring him."

They dragged Davison's body across and hefted the corpse onto the table, watching with morbid fascination as John Connor attached electrodes and wires across the body and head. SkyNet's link to the reanimation machine was weakening, he could tell but this was to John's advantage as he hacked through all the security protocols, editing huge chunks of programming from his own memory as he tried to reverse the terrible procedure SkyNet used for stripping and dissecting a living mind. John watched as the tissue repair program activated, the damage repairing itself at an inhuman rate as the time machine accelerated tissue regrowth. Once the body was healed there was only one more organ to repair, the most delicate part of a human being: the brain.

John activated the reversal programming he had just encoded, crossing his fingers and praying that the years of hard study would pay off. The body on the table jerked as electrical energy surged through it.

Davison gasped, his eyes flying open and he looked around at the awe-filled faces, his eyes finally coming to rest of John Connor. John whispered softly, in relief.

"It works."

John wasted no more time. He strode back to the time machine and activated the return program he had devised, watching as flashes of electrostatic energy surged around the portal. A body started to coalesce, the pale flesh smeared with blood. The naked form dropped onto the floor of the portal, unmoving - dead.

****

The coroner pulled close the zipper, sealing Kyle Reese inside the body bag, then ordered the body removed. He watched as it was loaded then climbed into the passenger seat. Ten minutes later they arrived at the hospital morgue. The Police had insisted on an immediate autopsy, the horror of the massacre at the precinct demanding explanation.

He watched, lips pursed in sadness as the body was removed from the bag and placed onto the examination table. It was always a shame when someone so young had died so violently. His assistant began to strip the body, the sharp blade cutting through the clothing with ease to reveal a body mottled by bruising and smeared in blood. There were several metal objects piercing the skin, and most would have proved fatal.

He took the opportunity to change into greens and pull on some gloves. With a heavy sigh he checked the tape was running and began the autopsy.

"Tag three six seven zero two. Male, Caucasian, approximately twenty-five years of age. Height..." He waited as his assistant finished measuring the body. "... one point seven one meters, weight approximately 160lbs."

"Visual inspection... the body appears to have suffered massive cuts and contusions consistent with close proximity to an explosive... what the hell?"

He jumped back as flickers of lightning zapped around the body.

"Greg? What is..?"

He covered his eyes, stepping back into the corner as forks of lightning danced around the morgue, sparking off metal trays and instruments. The strip light exploded, showering him in glass and he looked back up in time to see the body zap out of existence.

****

"Get him over there."

No-one hesitated, quickly lifting the lifeless form of Kyle Reese onto the table. John attached the wires and electrodes as before then started the repair program, watching avidly as the time accelerated tissue regenerator made quick work of repairing all the damaged tissue. He closed his eyes for a moment before inputting the final command sequence that would start the regeneration process, hoping he had selected the right time to pull Kyle's body back into the present. If he had waited too long then the deterioration of Kyle's brain would be beyond the machine's ability to reanimate.

He watched as the electric shocks rocked the pale, blood-splattered frame.

Kyle Reese gasped and sat upright, staring around the weapons damaged laboratory that he had left only a short time before, yet every moment of his time with Sarah was etched into his memory as clear as if it had happened only moments before. He started to shake and was grateful as his recently discarded clothes were pulled back onto his cold body. He stared at John Connor in utter confusion but was given no time to ask questions.

"Bring in as many of the injured and dead as you can, but make it fast. SkyNet's back-up generator is failing and once it goes down..."

John Connor let the sentence hang in the air, ominously.

****

John Connor thumped the machine in desperation as the power finally gave out, plunging the laboratory into darkness as every indicator failed at once. If only there had been a way to boost the power grid without reanimating SkyNet then he would have been able to save all of the ones killed during this last battle. He gazed at the fifty-three men and women standing confused in the corner, then looked down at the woman on the table. John stroked the errant lock of blood streaked hair from her forehead then leaned down and kissed her rapidly cooling flesh. He whispered softly to her.

"I'm so sorry."

John felt someone touch his arm and turned to find Martins by his side.

"You did far more than anyone dreamed. You saved as many as you could, John. You saved us all."

****

Kyle raised his head, letting the cool water cascade across his face, washing away the smears of blood that caked his skin and hair. This was a welcome luxury none of them had foreseen but the discovery of the huge reservoir beneath the complex had solved their water problems. The machinery which ran it would be safe to keep online indefinitely, possessing no intelligence beyond its simple programming, the water itself providing enough power to operate the machine.

He scrubbed at his healed flesh, watching the blood-discolored water flow away, taking with it the last physical evidence of his journey back through time. He wrapped his arms around himself, trying to recall the feel of Sarah's body pressed close against his own. Tears stung his ears, finally falling only to mingle with the water that trickled down his face. He had been granted the impossible, had gone back in time to be with the woman he had fallen in love with through a photograph and the remarkable son she had borne - and now he was alone again.

When he first came back to awareness in the laboratory and realized he had been returned from the dead, Kyle had wanted to scream. Even death had seemed preferable to a future without Sarah in his arms, and he had felt a moment of pure anger at John Connor for bringing him back.

Now all he could feel was a numbness spreading through his mind, a sense of unreality as if it had all been some terrifying and yet wonderful dream. He turned off the water and dried off, pulling his clothes back onto his still damp body.

When he finished dressing Kyle looked up to find John Connor sitting on the ground nearby, watching him intently. Kyle swallowed hard, feeling so guilty for the lack of gratitude he felt at this moment. He walked over and dropped down to sit beside him, his voice shaking as he asked the one question that had been going around his mind since his return.

"I have to ask. Why? Why did you bring me back? Why did you save me?"

John stared hard at the handsome face, seeing the tight lines of pain and sorrow etched into every line, remembering the child he had watched grow to manhood.

"Because I have loved you all my life. Because I have loved you all of **your** life."

John saw a frown form, the lips so similar to his own parting in confusion. He recalled the love shining in his mother's eyes when she spoke of Kyle Reese, the man who had been her first and only love.

"Because **she** loved you. Because she wanted you to live."

John reached out and held Kyle by the shoulders, staring deep into the green eyes that had held his mothers only a short time ago, seeing the beginning of understanding fill the saddened face, and he whispered softly, voice full of emotion.

"Because you are my father."

THE END


End file.
